The fat one snapped bis fingers. "You know, for a change, you're probably right.''
They ran toward the corner. When they turned it,
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Remo and Chiun had gone. They could hear the accelerating roar of a car's motor a block away. They started running, but the car's sound vanished as the vehicle drove off.
Chiun sat in the passenger seat with his arms folded.
"So what did you learn?" Remo asked.
"It is as I feared," Chiun said. "A young boy. The power to create flame from his own body. Untouchable. Unreachable. It is very bad."
"You saying this has something to do with Tung-Si?" Remo asked.
'The Lesser. Yes. The message he sent back to our people while he was dying told of such a boy. The Master told how, when he was burned, he had put the curse of Sinanju upon the boy. And the boy laughed, and he told Tung-Si the Lesser, 'And upon all the Masters of Sinanju, I put míj curse and my children's children will put their curses.' "
"Come on, Chiun. You don't believe in that. You don't believe in curses."
"I believe in history," Chiun said.
"So what's history?"
"History is the rest of the Master's message. He told of the boy's curse. And the boy said that someday, a young boy of the line of fire people would meet the youngest Master of Sinanju. It would be a battle to the death. And the line of Sinanju would end forever."
Remo took his eyes off the street and glanced over toward Chiun. "He's just a kid," he said.
"And you are the youngest Master of Sinanju," Chiun said, looking stonily ahead.
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CHAPTER TEN
Remo let Smith know very clearly that this did not mean he was coming back to work for CURE. That part of his life was in the past, back before he realized what a nice guy he was, but just to show his niceness, he was going to give Smith and CURE a chance to do something good for America by letting them help dispose of the firebugs, Solly and Sparky.
"In other words, you're stumped," Smith said.
"I need some resource help," Remo said, annoyed with his own transparency.
"About what?"
"About people who can set their bodies on fire and then use them to set other things on fire," Remo said. Even as he said it, he realized how unbelievable it sounded. Smith confirmed his judgment.
"That's unbelievable," Smith said.
"Believe it," Remo said. "There are more things in heaven and earth than you ever thought about . . ."
". . . Horatio," Smith completed, "and you messed up the quote. Are you serious?"
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"Deadly," Remo said. "I saw it I got burned myself."
"I don't know then," Smith said. "I'll try to find out something. Where can I reach you?"
Suddenly, Remo was suspicious. Smith was stalling to find out where Remo was. "I'll call you," Remo said.
"That's not sensible," Smith said. "You're in a hurry, I take it."
"Yes."
"Well, suppose I have several people who know something about this. At least let me pick the one that's closest to where you are."
"You do that," Remo said.
"I can't if I don't know where you are."
"Try the Midwest," Remo said, pleased at his cleverness.
"Just where in St. Louis are you?" Smith asked.
"Dammit, Smitty, how'd you know that?"
"I've taken to reading fire reports. There was a fire in St. Louis last night that fit the pattern."
Remo gave him the name of his hotel.
"I'll be back to you as soon as I can." Smith promised.
Remo felt vaguely foolish waiting for the para-psychologist at St. Louis University. He had always regarded parapsychology as kids' games for people with education. In America, university parapsy-chologists, after what they claimed were controlled laboratory tests, had certified that horses could count and read minds, that unsuccessful Israeli magicians could bend keys and start broken watches with waves sent out over the television set, when almost anyone could start a broken watch by carry-
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ing it to a television set. Just jarring it by carrying it was enough to start most broken watches, since most of them weren't broken anyway, but had just been overwound.
Remo regarded parapsychology as not much different from psychiatry, except that when you were wrong, no one committed suicide.
He was expecting a little old lady in Earth shoes, carrying a tarot deck, a divining rod, and a headset to listen to the heavenly voices. What he got was a tall, lissome redhead, with the kind of face that would make the heavenly voices wait on line to talk to her.
She smiled at him warmly and waved for him to follow her back into her office.
The woman stood behind her desk. "Won't you sit down?" she told Remo. She was wearing a violet jersey dress, and it clung to her body as if it had developed an attachment for her flesh which, Remo decided, was no difficult matter. The woman's voice was soft, with the musical hint of a laugh in it.
"I'm Doctor Ledore," she said. "I have been told by a scientific foundation in New York City, which provides us with some research funds, that I am to be helpful to you. I am not to ask you any questions. Those are my instructions." She smiled at Remo. "So, of course, I'll violate them. I'm interested in knowing who you are."
"Maybe your ouija board will tell you," Remo said. He realized by the sudden disappearance of her smile that that was not a terribly bright or witty thing to say. "Just kidding," he said lamely.
"Yes," she said. "What is on your mind?"
What was on Remo's mind was Doctor Ledore's
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fine chest. He hesitated a moment before remembering what he had wanted to say. "I'm interested in people who are able to set their bodies afire and use them as a torch to set other objects afire," he said.
"Have you ever heard of SHC?" she asked. She sat down behind her desk.
"Yeah, you put it in your car so it stops burning oil," Remo said.
"Not exactly," she said.
"SHC stands for spontaneous human combustion," she said. She rose from her seat and walked around the front of the desk. She was close enough for Remo to touch, and he could smell the faint woodsy scent of her perfume. He felt as if she were doing some spontaneous combustion of his body. He looked at her bosom, soft and full in her clinging dress.
"Pay attention," she said sharply, and Remo looked up to see her face. Her words were sharp, but her face was smiling.
"SHC is just what it sounds like," she explained. "A human body burns without apparent cause, and the fire feeds on itself."
Remo shook his head. "That sounds like nonsense," he said.
She walked to a book shelf and pulled down a thick book. "Here's a book on forensic medicine and toxicology," she said. "It was published in 1973, not in the dark ages." She flipped through the book, then handed it over to Remo. There were three pictures of burned human bodies. The caption underneath them said, "Almost total tissue destruction with little involvement of the surroundings."
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Í
He nodded and looked up. She said, "SHC isn't some myth, Mister . . . what is your name?"
"Remo."
"It's not a myth, Remo. It's a scientific fact that it happens, but no one knows why. There was a case in Florida almost thirty years ago. Someone went into a woman's apartment. The place was superheated, but there was only one little burn mark on the ceiling. But directly under the place where the flame was seen, firemen found what was left of a body. Ashes, a bone or two and a shrunken skull. Newspapers a foot away from the body weren't even yellowed by the heat, but in the bathroom, a plastic toothbrush had been melted. They investigated it for two years. It's still listed as 'death due to fire of unknown origin.'" She took the book from Remo and returned it to the shelf. He liked to watch her walk. Her legs were long and curvy, and her hair sparkled under the overhead fluorescent lighting.